John Stewart - A Documentary Survey of the French Revolution

The Macmillan Company

NEW YORK

All rights reservedno part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in magazine or newspaper.

To the Memory

of

My First and Greatest Teachers

My Mother

MARION BAKER STEWART

( 1866 - 1937 )

and

My Father

GEORGE STEWART

( 1866 - 1941 )

... the most ingenious and most eloquent of modern historical discourses can after all be nothing more than a comment on a text.

EDWARD A. FREEMAN *

*Inaugural Lecture, The Methods of Historical Study (London, 1886), p. 16, [Quoted by permission of Macmillan and Co., Ltd., London, England.]

... this French Revolution ... is the

dreadfulest labor ... I ever undertook; ...

CARLYLE TO EMERSON *

Some seventy-five years have passed since the publication of the first edition of Bishop Stubbs Select Charters. During the interval, that masterpiece of arrangement and interpretation, in addition to furthering and facilitating the use of primary sources in the study of early English constitutional history, has served as an inspiration and a model for similar studies in other fields of historical endeavor. Today an abundance of collections of source materials delineates virtually every major period of human history through contemporary records, from the Code of Hammurabi to the Constitution of Soviet Russia; yet nowhere amidst this plenty is there readily accessible a satisfactory book of documents elucidating the history of the Great French Revolution. For many years students of the period have depended upon Frank Maloy Andersons The Constitutions and Other Select Documents Illustrative of the History of France, 1789-1901 (Minneapolis, 1904; 2d rev. ed., 1908) for the texts of the principal revolutionary enactments in English translation; but this has long been out of print. E. L. Higgins more recent work, The French Revolution as Told by Contemporaries (Boston, 1938), is a useful compilation of excerpts translated from contemporaneous comments; but it includes only a scattered few of those vital public documents which afford such an excellent indication of the aspirations, as well as the accomplishments, of the revolutionaries. And other leading collections, whether of public or of private documents, whether in French or in English translation, are either out of print or extremely limited in content. The present Documentary Survey of the French Revolution is an attempt to remedy this deficiency. The book is designed primarily for teachers and students in undergraduate colleges; it may also prove useful to students beginning postgraduate study in modern European history.

As originally planned, this work was based on the assumption that

* 3 February, 1835, The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1873, ed. by C. E. Norton, 2 v. (London, 1883), v. 1, p. 42. [Quoted by permission of Chatto and Windus, London, England.]

documents will never be properly studied while they are divorced from the history and relegated to separate collections. 1 It was to have been a history of the French Revolution with the documents inserted (with appropriate supplementary aids) in their proper contextin fact, very much in the manner of the study just quoted. Unfortunately, such a plan proved to be impracticable in its entirety, primarily because of limitations of space.

The completed work, therefore, represents a compromise, in which the original ideal has been retained as far as possible. The book consists of an Introduction (a sketch of the circumstances out of which the Revolution grew), a Conclusion (a summary evaluation of the results of the Revolution), and nine intervening Chapters (each of which deals with a major section of the Revolution, in whole or in part). Each Chapter is divided into Sections, designated by Roman numerals, with a fresh number sequence for each chapter. Within the Sections appear the Documents, designated by Arabic numerals, and numbered consecutively throughout the book. At the beginning of each chapter, a brief note (average length about 500 words) presents a summary of the chapter, and refers to the sections by Roman numeral. At the beginning of each section of a chapter a brief note (average length about 350 words) presents a summary of the section, and refers to the documents by Arabic numeral. At the beginning of each document a brief note (average length about 100 words) presents a critical evaluation of or comments upon the text itself. Documentation has been kept at a minimum, and, as indicated in a note at the end of the Key to Abbreviations (infra), the same is true of bibliographical aids.

The choice of the texts incorporated in, and comprising approximately eighty per cent of, this book was based partly upon a consideration of the documents cited in the standard manuals, general studies, and reference works on the French Revolution, partly upon the results of my own investigations in the principal sources relating to that subject, and partly upon the recommendations of numerous friends and associates who examined the original table of contents. Since the work is essentially a collection of public documents, the final selection was restricted mainly to statutes, constitutions, proclamations, and treaties. In general the documents are presented in their entirety, except for the brief formal preambles, conclusions, and signatures, most of which have been omitted without any special indication of such fact; elsewhere, omissions are denoted by ... or by summaries in brackets. Reference is usually given to more than one source for each document, and when there is any important variation among the texts cited, such difference is noted. The paragraph structure is always that of the specific text used, but unless otherwise indicated, the punctuation, capitalization, and enumeration have been simplified, modernized, and standardized throughout the book. A glossary of untranslated and unfamiliar terms is included in the Index.

'Tanner, J. R., Tudor Constitutional Documents (Cambridge, 1922), p. v. [Quoted by permission of the Cambridge University Press.]

In the work of translation, the basic guide to which was usually Cassells French-English , English-French Dictionary (London, 1921 and New York, 1930), an effort has been made to adhere as closely as possible to the meaning and spirit of the original French, and at the same time to render it into simple, idiomatic English. In this exacting and exhausting task I was favored with the indispensable counsel of Mary Kemple Stewart, whose efforts to render the texts intelligible merit special commendation. I also received assistance from Professors Clarence Hatch and William P. Ward of Western Reserve University, Dr. O. F. W. Ellis, formerly of Western Reserve University, and Albert Fonda, formerly a student in Adelbert College of Western Reserve University.

The preparation of the present work was lightened by the guidance and encouragement of many generous scholars. The late Professor Carl Becker of Cornell University provided the incentive for the project, many years ago, by a pointed comment on the need for a book of French Revolution documents in English translation; and until his death his kindly interest and learned opinion on every aspect of the work were a constant source of inspiration. When the general outline of the work was completed, I was fortunate in obtaining the advice of Professors Donald Grove Barnes, Elbert J. Benton, and Henry E. Bourne of Western Reserve University, Crane Brinton of Harvard University, Geoffrey Bruun of New York University, Donald G. Creighton of the University of Toronto, Huntley Dupre of the University of Kentucky, George M. Dutcher of Wesleyan University, Wallace K. Ferguson of New York University, Leo Gershoy of New York. University, Louis R. Gottschalk of the University of Chicago, Beatrice F. Hyslop of Hunter College, Wilfrid B. Kerr of the University of Buffalo, Ralph H. Lutz of Stanford University, E. Wilson Lyon of Pomona College, Edward H. McNeal of the Ohio State University, Frank Monaghan formerly of Yale University, Frederick L. Nussbaum of the